Sunday 23 March 2014

Battle Report: Escape from El Catrase - Turn 1

I can't quite put my finger on it. Either, whenever I do a battle report, I underestimate how much work it really is, or the entire planet is hell bent against me producing battle reports.

I suspect the latter.

Still, through no small amount of bravery, toil and triumph on my part, I am able to continue the story of The Escape from El-Catrase.

With pictures. Taking a queue from many other stories I like (very special mention to Airbornegrove26, whose inspirational use of Comic Life had me aching for more...), I elected to use Comic Life.

Contrary to what I expected, it was much harder to tell a story visually. Especially if you can't go back and set up the poses of the figures.

So, I'd be awfully interested in opinions of this approach. Better or worse than the written story?

Anyway, here's turn 1. The quality of the images (of the comic page, that is, not necessarily those within) is quite high, so I'd imagine they would be best viewed if you right-clicked on the image and opened them in a new page. Apologies - blogger doesn't have any really clever options here. I know I can set it up not to use the slide-show, but the corresponding lack of navigability is too frightful to consider.

























Regards
Gaj

13 comments:

  1. Brilliant Gaj, love the report.

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  2. You know, battle reports work really well in the comic style. I'm a little surprised that no one thought of it until Oldhammer came along. This is a good fun report made all the more fun -- and easy to follow -- by the format. More of this sort of thing!

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    1. There are other examples of this in historical as well as fantasy. It just is darn hard work and so you don't often see it.

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  3. Wow. Doesn't time fly. It was just over two years ago that you commented on my first Comic Life attempt (http://cthulhuchris.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/battle-at-hamlet.html) and said you would look into the software yourself! Not suggesting you should have done so sooner, just that it really doesn't feel like two whole years!

    Anyhow, I enjoyed the report. I tend to prefer ones which are more visual, as for me, that is what the hobby is about. Of course, I do enjoy your prose, but I prefer seeing your figures and terrain! :)

    Keep up the top quality work, sir!

    Chris

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  4. Looks like it was a lot of work! but well worth it.Thanks

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  5. It doesn't get much better than this!

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  6. Gaj!
    Glad to see you take the plunge with comic life. (Don't you love when you go to move a pic, and you hit the purple arrows that sends the pic spinning?)

    I loved it. I personally would never be able to shove 1 turn into 23 pages ( I am way to impatient). You sir have done it wonderfully. I can't wait to see more.

    As for me when I write my reports, I have a very loose narrative in mind. I then take a bunch of close up action shots as you have seen, and really let the game write it self.

    In the Survival of the fittest reports, we had everyone's chaos attributes coming into play which made for some very quirky reports, but not the best game turns for those that befell poor stupidity rolls.

    Excellent job sir, and glad to see that you have a new tool for your story telling.

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  7. Looks great, Gaj! Although i couldn't figure out how to make these fantastic pics open up so they could be enjoyed in a larger size. Loved the page with poor Gromeo's fear (of blood) test!

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  8. Crikey - you packed a lot into turn 1!

    Comic Life is great fun although I must say I do enjoy your more wordy reports too.

    "It's a bee!" - love it!

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  9. Prose is your strong suit. The comic format does not let your talent shine as bright.

    Lovely report and pictures still!

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  10. Hi Gaj,

    I was wondering if you'd like to add your batrep details to our community Warhammer database? You can link back to your batreps on this site so people can check them out and the database will track your performance, rank you against others and people can rate your reports.

    You can check it out here :- www.WFBattles.com

    It's all FREE btw, I built it for fun and to learn how to develop websites.

    Keep on hammering,
    Sigmar

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    1. PS. I've just added your blog to the approved links list so you don't have to contact me before you get posting battles on WFBattles.com (http://www.wfbattles.com/LinksAndCredits.aspx)

      May the dice gods be with you,
      Sigmar

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  11. Hi, I've nominated you for a Liebster Award, in case you haven't got one already... http://woffboot.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/i-accept-this-liebster-award-on-behalf.html

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